Pre-Air History of WTVT
Continued

WHAT'S IN A NAME?

Starting a TV station is a major endeavor but there was another challenge facing Tison's group...they needed a four-letter word.  A name for the station.

Call letters are one of the most important branding tools for a station.  Great call letters that signify strength, reflect the community or its ownership, or just plain sound cool when spoken are a tremendous asset in promotion.  Call letters were sometimes acronyms.  WSUN stood for "Why Stay Up North?" WDAE meant "Wonderful Days And Evenings."   Channel 8 had WFLA (no explanation needed). 

So how did Channel 13 gain the snappy call letters 'WTVT'?  

When a newly-licensed channel is added to a television market, it is customary for the applicants to apply to the FCC for call letters.  Usually, the applicant will submit several arrangements of call letters for consideration.  Blessing the new Channel 13 with the proper call letters was very important to Walter Tison, who had christened his Tampa radio station WALT.    But one letter, the first "W," was already mandated by the FCC.  

East of the Mississippi river, all stations call letters begin with a "W."  West of the Mississippi, all stations call letters begin with a "K."  

What would you name a new station in Tampa, knowing that the first letter would have to be a "W"?

Well, the next most likely letters would be "TV," short for TeleVision...and of course a "T" for Tampa, and voila:WTVT!

If you think that's how Channel 13 got their call letters, you'd be dead wrong!  Ron Harpe, a former Tison employee and later Chief Announcer at WTVT, tells a different story.  Ron told BIG 13:

The "WT" part stands for "Walter Tison." The "VT" part stands for his wife, "Virginia Tison."

Walter Tison Virgina Tison = WTVT!

And thus...WTVT, Channel 13, was born.

WTVT is probably the most graceful set of call letters in the entire country, and very pleasing to the ear.  Another bonus was later evident on WTVT's tower:

Visible by day and illuminated from within at night , the station's call letters read correctly whether drivers were heading east or west on Grand Central Blvd.!

APRIL 1st - NO FOOLING!

Meanwhile, the clock was ticking and Tampa Television was struggling to pull all the elements together to get Channel 13 on the air.  The FCC license delay meant that construction of a new, customized television facility, as accomplished by WFLA, would not be possible.  

In the early days of television, studios were often housed in department stores, newspaper offices, warehouses, and even former car dealerships.  Channel 13's first director, Walter Rhoads**, remembered the search for studio space. "We were in a hurry to get on the air, so we looked for an existing building to get started in."  

Channel 13 found a home...at a building originally 
built for a Greek restaurant.  'TV Dinner' anyone?

"We found a new Greek restaurant which was to be opened until the owner died, and we decided on that.  Engineers came first.  Most production people came in March, 1955, two weeks before we went on the air.  The kitchen became master control, the dining room became our only studio, the production office was the bar/lounge, and the package store became the sales office, which some people considered appropriate."

 The race to get on the air climaxed April 1, 1955...the day Tampa Bay's newest television station, WTVT, Channel 13, went on the air.

*As mentioned above, radio had served the Tampa Bay area since the 1920's.  WFLA and WSUN radio (AM 62) shared operations until 1941.   Other early stations include WDAE, owned by David Smiley, publisher of the Tampa Times.  WTSP was owned by Nelson Poynter, publisher of the St. Pete Times.  WTSP studios were located in the Times' downtown St. Pete building.  Poynter planned to include a television studio at The Times building in the event he was awarded the license for Channel 38.  In the mid 50's, one of WTSP's on-air personalities was a young, up and coming broadcaster named Paul Reynolds.  Reynolds would later become a mainstay at WTVT.

WTSP's frequency was AM 1380.  A broadcasting group managed by the Rahall family (Sam, Joe, and Farris) purchased WTSP in 1956.  After failing to make the station a commercial success, WTSP followed WALT's format and changed to rock 'n roll.  Studios were located on Gandy Blvd. and in 1959,  the call letters were changed to WLCY.  In 1962, the Rahall family was granted an FCC license for Channel 10.  Due to various legal challenges, Channel 10 did not go on the air until 1965.  Its call letters were WLCY-TV, and the station took over ABC network affiliation from WSUN.  The City of St. Petersburg immediately sold WSUN to a Detroit broadcasting group.  After limping along as an independent, WSUN went off the air in 1970.

As part of his pitch to gain the Channel 13 license, Tison had promised to sell WALT radio and did so in 1956.  Upon selling WTVT to Gaylord later in 1956, Tison received an enormous share of the proceeds (the sale price was $3,500,000).  In 1957, he bought another radio station WWTB (am 1300), which in turn was sold in 1959.  Tison died in the early 1980s.  

WSUN attempted to gain a VHF channel in the late 1950s by offering it's facilities to WEDU, Channel 3, the bay area's first ETV station.  The idea was that WEDU would gain WSUN's equipment in a swap of channel 3 for channel 38.  The offer was turned down.  WSUN also attempted to gain a license for channel 10, but this too was rejected by the F.C.C. in favor of the Rahalls, who were awarded a the license in 1962.  Legal challenges delayed Channel 10's debut until 1965, when it took the ABC affiliation away from WSUN, leading to Channel 38's demise four years later.

One other observation about Channel 13.  Most CBS and NBC owned and operated and affiliate stations of the time occupied lower channel allocations.  CBS in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago was on Channel 2.  NBC in New York and Los Angeles was on Channel 4, with Chicago on Channel 5.  Many other markets had CBS and NBC no higher than Ch. 6 on the dial.  The FCC's decision to allocate Channels 38, 8, and 13 to Tampa Bay dictated the higher channels for the network affiliates. To this day, you'll find that it's unusual to see a CBS or NBC affiliate in the higher channel range such as Channel 13. (Ft. Myer's WINK, Channel 11 was also an early CBS affiliate located higher up on the dial).  To counter-act the superstitious aspect of the number 13, WTVT's promotion department originally tagged the station "Lucky 13."

**Walter Rhoads later became Channel 13's promotion manager, and coined the term we use as the name of our web site...BIG 13.

Special thanks to Dan Perez of Carlton-Fields for historical information on Channel 13's origin.

Special thanks to Kevin Coldiron for research on WTVT's original transmitter site.

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